JuD chief and Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed on Tuesday warned Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif against extending a hand of friendship to India under international pressure and without taking on board the Kashmiri people.

“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should not think about one-sided friendship with India. Any such step will hurt the Kashmiris,“ Saeed said.The Pakistani government should not hold talks with India without taking the Kashmiri people on board, he said.“Pakistan must not come under pressure from the inter national community over the Kashmir issue and stick to its principled stance,“ he said in a statement.

The warning by Saeed came after a meeting between PMs of India and Pakistan in the Russian city of Ufa on the sidelines of the SCO Summit on July 10, where the two leaders decided to revive the stalled dialogue process and expedite the trial of the Mumbai attack case.

All-clear for Mush in Benazir case?

Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf could be acquitted in the Benazir Bhutto murder case due to lack of evidence as key witnesses have retraced their statements implicating him, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Thirteen years after the horrific burning of S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express which triggered the Gujarat riots, the prime accused in the Godhra case, Hussain Suleman Mohammad, was arrested from Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh on Friday .

Hussain, 35, who concealed his Godhra background all these years worked as an auto driver in Jhabua. He was picked up by the Godhra crime branch.Inspector D J Chavda said Hussain was produced in court and sent to 12-day police custody.

Soon after he was named accused, Hussain fled Godhra and shifted base to Jhabua, which is 120 km away .While in hiding, he got married and fathered two kids.Police sources said he could have easily lived in Jhabua all his life had he not visited his family in Godhra during Ramzan. This alerted the Gujarat police which started the probe.

On July 16, the crime branch had nabbed another accused, Kadir Abdul Gani, from Godhra and handed him over to Gujarat special investigation team (SIT).

Giving a slip to police and intelligence agencies, Hussain changed rented accommodations thrice during his stay in Jhabua and was currently residing in Ward-17 of Vivekanand Colony , the police said.

With the help of relatives and friends, he bought two auto-rickshaws and became a bonafide resident of Jhabua by procuring driving licence, ration card and Aadhaar card.

Jhabua SP Abid Khan said, “Godhra police did not inform us about on-the-run accused. Had Gujarat police handed over documents and tipped us off, we would have acted fast.“

In February 2002, Suleman worked as a tea vendor at Godhra railway station and was one of the attackers who locked S-6 coach to set it ablaze, the Gujarat police said. At least 59 kar sevaks were killed in the ghastly incident that sparked off mayhem in the state that claimed over 1,200 lives.

Not many yes for Indian citizenship from the 37,000-odd people staying in Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh has raised the bogey of a Jamaat-e-Islami hand in ensuring a very low turnout.

Just 979 people, or .02% of those living in the Indian enclaves, have opted for Indian citizenship. In stark contrast, all the 14,854 staying on Indian soil in Bangladeshi enclaves have sought Indian citizenship. A home department official said there were allegations that Jamaat had prevented Indian enclave-dwellers from freely exercising their option. The home ministry has been alerted on this, he added.

The numbers have even surprised officials as the Centre has assured a kitty of `3,000 crore for rehabilitation of the people who shift from the Indian enclaves in Bangladesh. It was earlier estimated that around 13,000 people in the 111 enclaves would move to India.

On Thursday , Cooch Behar Trinamool Congress MP Renuka Sinha confirmed the development.She said several thousand Indians living in Indian enclaves in Bangladesh had not been able to express their option freely as they had been intimidated by Jamaat activists. “I have written to Union home minister Rajnath Singh and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. Those who wanted to opt for India were not allowed to do so. Jamaat activists put their thumb impressions on the option papers and stated Bangladesh as their choice,“ she alleged.

Pradip Bhattacharya, chairman of the parliamentary committee on home affairs, said: “I met the home minister and asked him to stop the enumeration process as Indians in Bangladesh were unable to opt for their citizenship due to intimidation by Jamaat, but the Narendra Modi government is turning a deaf ear and allowing Jamaat to wreck havoc with the Indian enclave dwellers in Bangladesh.“

Pradeep Bhattacharya said Jamaat was trying to gain political mileage by opposing people from moving to India. He said the India should allow re-registration of Indian enclave-dwellers.

Many enclave-dwellers working in different parts of India have complained to the district magistrate of Cooch Behar about being intimidated, said Debabrata Chaki of the Indian Enclaves United Council. He said even people with land deeds were prohibited from exercising their option.

Turkish warplanes attacked Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria for the first time on Friday , with President Tayyip Erdogan promisinTurkeyg more decisive action against both the jihadis and Kurdish militants at home.

Turkish warplanes killed nine IS fighters in strikes in Syria, a monitor said. “Turkish aircraft carried out three strikes on IS positions in northeastern Aleppo province, killing nine... and wounding 12,“ said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The air strikes, which followed a phone conversation between Erdogan and US President Barack Obama on Wednesday , were accompanied by police raids across Turkey to detain hundreds of suspected militants, including from Kurdish groups.

Turkey has long been a reluctant partner in the US-led coalition against IS, emphasizing instead the need to oust Syrian President Bashar al Assad and saying Syrian Kurdish forces also pose a grave security threat. But Friday's attacks, which officials said were launched from Turkish air space, signalled that Ankara would crack down against IS across the Syrian border “In our phone call with Obama, we reiterated our determination in the struggle against the separatist organisation and the Islamic State,“ Erdogan told reporters. “We took the first step last night.“

Ankara acted hours after officials in Washington said it had agreed to let US jets launch air strikes from a base near the Syrian border, dropping an earlier refusal to allow manned American bombing raids. Turkish daily Hurriyet said the agreement for US planes to use Incirlik base in southern Turkey provided for a 90km no-fly zone between the Syrian towns of Marea and Jarabulus to the east. “It (Incirlik) will be used within a certain framework,“ President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul, without giving further details. Asked about the deal Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: “A decision has been taken for Turkey's own security.“

Turkey has faced increasing insecurity along its 900km frontier with Syria. A crossborder firefight on Thursday between the army and IS, which has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, left five militants and one soldier dead.

Turkey has also suffered a wave of violence in its largely Kurdish southeast after a suspected Islamic State suicide bombing killed 32 people, many of them Kurds, in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border this week. AGENCIES